


"Trying" Doesn't Always Work

by Aston (AstonT)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: But it isn't self hate driven, How Do I Tag, Introspection, Suggested eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 22:13:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12735348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstonT/pseuds/Aston
Summary: Tsukishima is trying.Everyone else just doesn't help, honestly.





	"Trying" Doesn't Always Work

**Author's Note:**

> This has been posted to [my tumblr](https://mymistakewriting.tumblr.com) as well
> 
> Originally written for two of my friends - they're in the haikyuu rp group on discord with me and play Oikawa and Kageyama respectively.

It didn’t start as anything - not something that Tsukishima could control or even something he was doing to make himself feel better. 

In fact, if he were honest he didn’t remember it morphing into that, either. 

No, it was just that he started skipping out on dinner because he didn’t want to be in the same room as his brother. 

He just didn’t want to have to listen to him make excuses, or face the tense silences that had begun accompanying their meals. 

It didn’t bother him - he made sure he still ate at lunch, and if he actually felt hungry after dinner, their mother had started leaving food out for him. 

Soon enough, that stopped too - he stopped getting hungry, and after a couple weeks of noticing this, he told his mother to stop leaving food out for him. 

He’d adjusted and that was probably the most surprising thing about all of it. 

It was never a problem, though. He was healthy, so what did it matter. 

* * *

Of course, the next year only worsened everything - he hated sharing an eating space with most of his classmates and he certainly wasn’t holding his breath for them to leave him alone.

Turns out that they lacked any sort of self preservation, not being able to read a situation and back off when they honestly should. 

Which lead to his lunch not being touched most days - he got to where he would use it to bribe people to  _ leave him alone _ on these days. The others, he’d wait to eat until he was on his way home - as long as the food was gone, that’s all that mattered. 

It hurt more this time around than it had when he stopped eating dinner with his family. 

It wasn’t  _ bad _ but it certainly wasn’t pleasant either. 

And if his mother started trying to coax him into eating with them at dinner more often again, well, she’d been trying for a while now so what else was new?

* * *

What he hadn’t accounted for was the fact that Yamaguchi would easily pick up on his eating habits - he had missed the looks the other gave him at lunch when he just… didn’t eat.

He gained another person worrying over his eating habits, and he  _ hated _ it with a passion. 

It wasn’t a big deal, why did people make it into one?

He was still managing to stay a healthy weight, and he was careful to make sure he ate when he felt hungry. 

He just couldn’t stomach a lot of food, that was all. 

Yamaguchi didn’t accept that as easily as his family did, though, which was annoying. 

He knew what he was doing, it was fine. He wasn’t  _ starving  _ himself, after all. 

* * *

Still, he didn’t fight when Yamaguchi started sitting with him at lunch to make sure he actually ate his lunch. If it made the other feel better, then fine. He could deal with that.

He just hoped that this worry died off soon. 

It wouldn’t, he knew, because that wasn’t how Yamaguchi was, but it was beginning to get exhausting trying to keep up an act to make that worry lessen. 

He didn’t want to always eat his lunch, so what? He still skipped dinner most nights when his brother was home, but it didn’t  _ matter _ , why couldn’t everyone just  _ stop worrying about it? _

It didn’t make sense, honestly. So what if he missed a meal or two, it wasn’t as if he did it constantly. 

* * *

By the time junior high had arrived, Tsukishima had gotten skilled at making people not notice his habits - eat a little with Yamaguchi, let the other worry all he wanted, and keep everyone else at a distance.

And it worked. No one else approached him, meaning no one else ever noticed. 

With junior high came his mother giving up on making him eat more meals as a family. He was glad for it, because it meant less chances of causing her to worry. 

Akiteru, however, picked up pestering him through his bedroom door after every skipped dinner when he was there. 

He usually avoided it - volleyball practice was a godsend on the nights he didn’t want to to have dinner with his mom and brother - but on the nights where he stayed late at practice solely to avoid dinner, he came back to a plate sitting outside his bedroom door. 

Unless it had been an exceedingly annoying practice, he left said plate untouched. 

He couldn’t eat immediately following practice anyway, that would only cause problems. He’d stopped taking food to afternoon practice because it started causing him to feel sick to eat during or after it. 

That was fine, no one really noticed, since a lot of the others also skipped out on eating during a break at practice. 

* * *

His final year of middle school, he knew he’d fucked himself over.

People still hadn’t noticed for the most part, which he was more than glad for, but his family and Yamaguchi were keeping a close eye on him. 

He was just glad that people didn’t see a couple of pounds as a big deal. 

He was still okay, he wasn’t in any sort of danger zone. 

But damn was it annoying to have people keeping such a close eye on him now because of it. 

It was then that he realized just how badly this could end, though - despite Yamaguchi putting forth his best effort to make sure he ate with him, it didn’t do  _ anything.  _

Because Tsukishima couldn’t stomach finishing his lunch, didn’t  _ want to  _ most days. 

Especially since he knew his mother was going to force him to sit down with her to have dinner, along with Akiteru if he was home. 

* * *

His first year of Karasuno began much the same as the entirety of middle school had - annoying classmates, and him wanting to be anywhere else in the world but there at that moment.

Volleyball club wasn’t much better - being on a team with idiots was draining. 

He was just glad that Yamaguchi seemed to have given up on making him eat during their break at practice, finally. 

Of course, it didn’t stop everyone else on the team from having the occasional  _ brilliant  _ idea to get meat buns after practice, especially if they had a long one. 

It was easy enough to accept and then just… not eat it. 

The only time any of them asked, he had shrugged it off and Yamaguchi had cut in with “he’ll eat it later, he just doesn’t like eating immediately after practice!”

And he’d never been more thankful for the other first year as he was in that moment because they dropped it. 

With that one sentence, they dropped it and were much more careful to avoid trying to make Tsukishima eat immediately following a practice. 

For all that Yamaguchi worried, he was  _ enabling  _ him and he couldn’t express how happy he was about that. 

It meant less trouble in the long run - no weird questions from the team, no one else to worry. 

* * *

Except… he could see people piecing together that it wasn’t just because of practice that he avoided eating around them.

He only ate a small amount when they were away for matches - he never finished what he brought, barely managing half of it usually. 

And they were  _ noticing  _ and it was causing him to feel mild panic every time meals came around when he was near them because they started trying to coax him into trying to eat just a little more. 

Not all the time - just when he was really only picking at his food to make them happy - that Yamaguchi or Daichi or Suga would jump in and try talking him into trying something they’d gotten, covering his lacking appetite with what he had wasn’t appealing to him at that moment. 

It kept everyone else from asking questions, but it still caused him so many problems it was unreal. 

So eventually, he stopped going for food with the team as much as he could get away with - he didn’t want to eat with them and have people watching his every move to make sure he ate. 

It was annoying and nobody’s business - he was perfectly healthy! 

* * *

The training camp in Tokyo, though. That was probably the worst thing in his life.

Every loss they took caused him more pain - that uphill spring was hard on a near empty stomach, and he barely managed to eat at dinner either because they didn’t  _ take a break  _ between practicing and dinner. 

There was no winning, and he could feel the concern from Daichi and Suga and Yamaguchi. 

He kept it as best he could from the other teams, accepting small snacks during breaks - Yamaguchi had looked into things that wouldn’t make him feel sick during exercise, something he was grateful for.  

But snacks didn’t help when they were doing uphill sprints after  _ every single practice game _

And even worse than that was the extra practice following the games - usually he would go relax for a while, let himself settle from practice, then go to dinner with everyone else, but since Kuroo and Bokuto had started dragging him into extra practice, he hadn’t had that chance, meaning dinner and the hour following were torture for him. 

* * *

On the final day, a barbecue was probably the worst thing to happen - they didn’t take a break to settle down between the last games and eating and Tsukishima could already feel his stomach protesting as soon as the smell of food hit his nose.

Yamaguchi stayed with him throughout the beginning of it, both of them eating slowly - Tsukki having a lot less on his plate than even Yamaguchi. 

He ignored the borderline sad look he got for that, shrugging it off with, “I’m not hungry,” and knowing Yamaguchi would understand that he couldn’t eat more so soon after practice. 

The only hiccup came in the form of Daichi coming to offer him another plate after he’d finished his. 

The phrase “ _ I can’t eat that much”  _ escaped his lips immediately, his tone surprised and horrified and he immediately saw Daichi’s shoulders tense at the words. 

_ That much _ was barely a plateful, and Tsukishima knew it. 

Kuroo and Bokuto butted in before anyone remarked, and as soon as Tsukishima escaped them, he leaned against the building and let out an annoyed huff of breath. 

He had fucked himself up, and now Daichi knew for sure that it was a problem. 

But it wasn’t. 

Seven pounds. Just seven pounds too light, that was nothing - even Hinata had a bigger issue with weight. 

Except… Hinata ate half his body weight in one go, and Tsukishima didn’t. 

* * *

No one brought it up again, but he could tell they were watching him closer.

He was  _ trying  _ and it didn’t mean a damn thing anymore because it just wasn’t  _ enough _ to anyone. 

And the thing he hated most about it was the fact that he knew he’d caused them to worry. 

* * *

Two weeks following that, his meal habits hadn’t improved. If anything, they’d fallen farther.

It was infuriatingly simple to see and there was no possible way that anything was getting fixed with them worrying and him being pissed at himself for causing it. 

He was trying, except he was beginning to stop wanting to. 

They thought he was self-destructing when he just… couldn’t eat as much as they could. 

Maybe they were right, though, and that’s the thought that scared him the most. 

That he could be wrong every time he told them it wasn’t important, that it wasn’t affecting his health. 

But he’d be damned before he admitted it. 


End file.
